Mudslide along West Virginia highway strands thousands for more than 8 hours

Thousands of motorists were stranded for more than eight hours along a section of rural interstate highway in southern West Virginia early Friday after a mudslide caused by heavy rains blocked a storm drain the previous night, flooding the northbound lanes.

Traffic backed up for 12 miles (about 19 kilometers) along the West Virginia Turnpike about 20 miles (32 kilometers) south of Charleston, the state capital. Traffic was not rerouted, and many motorists along the mountainous route had no choice but to remain in their vehicles overnight.

Motorists posted on social media that they had no information on why the standstill occurred, that they had nothing to drink in their vehicles or that their children needed to use the bathroom.

Nicky Walters said in a telephone interview that she felt fortunate while she was stuck because she is healthy, did not not need medicine and had nobody she was responsible for caring for.

“But I felt desperate because I knew that other people needed help,” said Walters, who became stranded while returning to Charleston from a pro wrestling event in Mount Hope. “People needed, at minimum, water bottles passed out and some snacks, much less information. They needed any lifeline to the outside world, and there was none.”

Chuck Smith, executive director of the West Virginia Parkways Authority, said one lane reopened Friday morning but traffic remained at a standstill for hours.

“Traffic should have been detoured to allow drivers an alternate route around the mudslide,” Smith said in a statement. “The Parkways Authority takes full responsibility for the failure to reroute traffic, and would like to assure the public that this will never happen again.”

No injuries were reported.

By the time Brittany Lemon and her family finally got home to Parkersburg, 24 hours had passed since they began returning from their vacation in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

In a video posted to Facebook, Lemon said she had no water and her children needed to use the bathroom. They were able to get an hour’s sleep while stuck on the highway.

“Definitely next year when I go back, I’ll be prepared for an emergency in the vehicle,” she said.

Mitch Carmichael, a former cabinet secretary of the Department of Economic Development, said on Facebook that he was on the turnpike “for hours with no relevant or timely info as to when issue will be cleared.”

He called it “incredibly unprofessional” for the public to be left in the dark and said it gives West Virginia “a terrible image.”

Gov. Patrick Morrisey said in a statement that the shutdown “was completely unacceptable. I have directed the Parkways Authority to immediately conduct an investigation and revise its procedures as necessary as a result of this incident.”

Shutdowns of the turnpike have happened before. In 2022 a tractor trailer crashed and spilled a chemical along the turnpike, closing all lanes for most of the day.